Hi Janice . There was a large group of McDonell [note spelling] who left Scotland 1773 on ship called the Pearl . These McDonell settled as tenants on the Kingsborough Patent NY [they can be found online by Googling "Rent Roll Kingsborough Patent" with Rent Due Date Sept. 25 1780 ] owned by Sir John Johnson . Most of these McDonell men served in the King's Royal Regiment of New York [KRRNY] during the Revolutionary War and resettled mostly to Stormont and Glengarry Counties in Eastern Ontario circa 1784 . These McDonell were classified as United Empire Loyalists [UE] and they and their children received land grants from the Crown . The MacDonald / McDonald who arrived directly from Scotland [1786 and later] were not UE . Later day genealogists have added an "a" to the McDonell name , but it does not appear on documents of the late 1700s . Someone on here mentioned the MacDonell Williamson House as being on the St Lawrence River , but it is on the Ottawa River instead near Point Fortune Quebec . Try your luck researching both McDonell / MacDonell names on the Rootsweb Boards for Glengarry and Stormont Counties . Good Luck J.